Cultural Erasure

The authors are concerning the increase the number of human trafficking with approximately twenty-seven million people in bondage. In fact, more than twice as many people are in bondage in the world today than were taken from Africa during the entire 350 years of the Atlantic slave trade. And it is also one of most third profitable criminal of all the time in humanity’s history; after dealing drug and weapons. This is the reason why Bales and Soodalter say today’s slavery is the serious crime that all people should be aware of. I was shocked. You know that moment when you read something but you have to reread it because you can’t even imagine that is true? It happened to me when I read chapter 1 of SND. The numbers of human trafficking were incredible, we are talking about twenty-seven million people who are in slave in all over the world, people who cannot walk away, people who

In the story about Mary Prince, she had several owners. Mrs. Williams one of Mary Prince’s first owners was described as kind-hearted good women, who treated all her slaves well (Prince 7). Mr. Williams was described as an abusive husband, I think this may be the reason why she treated her slaves with so much kindness. Mary Prince had another owner by the name of Mr.D. Mr.D lived in Grand Quay, a small town, where he had owned a salt pound (Prince 19). Mr. D received profits for having slaves work in his salt pound. When he would beat Mary or order her to be punished she would describe him as being emotionless (Prince 20). The fact that Mr.D was running a business lead me to believe he could not show any weakness towards the slaves. This type of mentality would perhaps make the slaves fear him greater than the typical slave owner and raise the level of productivity of the slaves in fear of being beaten with no remorse. Even though this seems inhuman, it was also Mr.D’s livelihood to ensure the slaves were continuing to work

Starting from a slave’s birth, this cruel process leads to a continuous cycle of abuse, neglect, and inhumane treatment. To some extent, slave holders succeed because they keep most slaves so concerned with survival that they have no time or energy to consider freedom. This is particularly true for plantation slaves where the conditions of slave life are the most difficult and challenging. However, slave holders fail to realize the damage they inadvertently inflict on themselves by upholding slavery and enforcing these austere laws and attitudes.

Slaves’ future lives all depended on who would “win” them and buy them. For Douglass, it was unbearable to observe human beings cry in desperation and pain. Frederick’s mistress was the only person, besides himself, that was able to experience pure dismay; causing them to ache together and understand the terror.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

of slaves seemed to be a distinctive feature of West Indian life for slaves in the 18th and 19th century. Sandra Paquet argues that ’social and religious prohibitions surrounding sexually explicit material in nineteenth century Britain and legal liabilities attached to the publication of such tracts placed further constraints on Mary Prince’s individual voice.’ Thomas Pringle being part of the Evangelical movement was fully aware that middle aged white Christian housewives would not want to read about sexual abuse as this would have been distasteful and black slave women already had a reputation for being sexually promiscuous so this would have discredited Prince as a witness. That said, Mary carefully gives details of incidents that have

My paper is an attempt to analyze the entire era of slavery and its later effects upon the lives of Africans who were brought forcefully to America as slaves and even after its abolition were treated inhumanly. My major attempt is to get an in depth insight of the struggles of these people for their survival in such an environment and the predicament of black women who were doubly oppressed; were the victims of both the whites and black men; and treated as naked savages and beasts, with Alice Walker’ masterpiece and Pulitzer prize winning The Color Purple. I have taken this project with my keen interest because the novel touched me deeply and I wanted to analyze it thoroughly.

Why is it that contemporary society recognises the immorality of past transgressions against human rights, but allows them to recur? In Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, Aminata Diallo represents a victim of the 19th century’s slave trade. Struggling to survive in a world that is not unlike today in both prejudice and injustice, Aminata voices the importance of recognising the rights of all people despite its consequences. As numerous research sources have evinced, it is still necessary to speak out against these offenses. While modern society has become more aware of the significance of human rights, it must adopt a deeper involvement in overcoming the current challenges that linger from the mistakes of our predecessors.

Mary Prince was a slave in the West Indies in the early 1800s. In her book, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, she talks about her life as a slave, and the treatment she received from the different families she lived with. This paper focuses on the cruel treatment of Mary by her slave owners, specifically the Inghams, Mr. D- and his wife, and the Woods.

The History of Mary Prince was a seminal work of the nineteenth century, which today remains an important historical device. Mary Prince’s story is not unique, but the circumstances and context surrounding her novel are. Defying contemporary standards and beliefs, The History of Mary Prince demonstrates the atrocities of slavery, but also a distinctive and deliberate political message. The History of Mary Prince is not only important for its demonstration of human suffering and the legal history it documents, but it also offers insight into the British abolition movement. Twofold, it remains an important text through both its straightforward portrayal of facts and experience as well as its underlying careful manipulation of political and moral themes. The History of Mary Prince served as an influential abolitionist piece of writing, but furthermore can incite multiple layers of interpretation and analysis of the abolition movement.

Throughout the history of mankind, a vast variety of achievements can be noted. Whether it be the discovery of fire, electricity, democracy, etc., humans have mastered the art of advancing themselves toward modern civilization. However, the history of mankind is also burden with many acts of darkness. Centuries ago, the slavery system was created and this hateful act continues to haunt the world to this day. A common miss conception of slavery, is that it began with the Europeans kidnapping Africans and taking them to the New World for agricultural purposes. However, slavery stretches much farther than the early developments of the United Sates. For example, the word slavery is derived from the root word “Slav”, which originated from the the Slavic people who were subjugated by other Europeans in the early developments of mankind. (Azumah) Western slavery is often connected with being the most heinous act towards the African people in history. With that said, many people are unaware of the Arab Muslim slave trade that occurred which resulted in the deaths of millions of more African lives than American slavery. (Azumah)

Throughout her narrative, Mary Prince offers changing opinions of her masters through the course of her enslavement. These descriptions, often contradictory of each other, offer a discussion of the complexity of slavery. In her youth, Mary Prince is very fond of her mistress, and she tells readers that her obedience was “cheerfully given” out of “affection…not from the fear of the power which the white people’s law” (58). This concept of obedience to the oppressor out of want rather than necessity would likely be confusing to the average European reader.

The Caribbean refers to a large group of islands in the West Indies. Some of these islands are Cuba, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. The Caribbean is a very culture rich and diverse area with a vast variety of foods, people, music, style, and art.

In a perfect world, the Caribbean is like a quilt that has been stitched together by a mother or grandmother. It eventually comes together to form a unique blanket that incorporates a multi-dimensional group of different pieces of colors and sizes in its final product. The maternal aspect of the quilt, represents the Euro-colonial influence that was responsible for the colonialization of the Caribbean region. All patches have their own unique shape and design, and eventually come together to make a fragmented image on the quilt. The fragmented image, created by different colors, shapes and patterns, represent the different cultures and races that are all interrelated to each other in the Caribbean. And each individual patch, represents a different island nation, and the thread, cotton and embroidery that weaves the patches together, represents the languages and ideologies that have come together over the course of history, to bond these island nations together.

Whether under the form of ideological or material disciplining, enslavement represents the inaugural form of the Modern Caribbean. This form is to be understood as intractably linked to its always-already dialectical negation: emancipation. In this essay I offer a critical engagement with the treatment that these two categories receive in The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James 1938) as analysed from the perspective of D. Scott’s Conscripts of Modernity (2004). To that effect, I shall proceed as follows: